ALAN MILLAR takes a close look at the Canadian manufacturer’s second 1:76-scale casting of a British double-decker, packed once again with highly accurate detail and released with an initial choice of 20 different variations of livery and identity
Rapido Trains set a new benchmark for model bus collectors with the release of its finely detailed and accurately captured 1:76-scale Birmingham City Transport “Standard” Guy Arab in 2019. It has followed this with a second casting in the same scale for the UK, depicting another double-decker from the West Midlands — the Leyland Fleetline with Metro-Cammell Weymann (MCW) body built in Birmingham.
West Midlands PTE placed 475 in service between January 1976 and January 1979.
The last were withdrawn in November 1997, by which time their careers spanned changes in their operator’s name first to West Midlands Travel in 1986, then to Travel West Midlands ten years later, and three different liveries. All had chassis built at Leyland in Lancashire, as Daimler’s Coventry factory was given over to Jaguar car production from 1973.
Rapido’s initial release of 20 liveried models depicts 19 vehicles at various stages of their 21-year career, with a variety of route numbe…
